Post-Labor Day Posts

1. I see that "Nawlins" was spared the brunt of Hurricane Gustav, which sort of implies that they won't be able to restart their collective helpless victim act all over again, but will just have to continue with the amazingly slow "rebuilding" process. And the Republicans, who tastefully put off their covention partying until the storm had passed, can now get on with their own business as usual, which is doing things like reconstructing Baghdad and turning it into a gleaming, golden city compared with places like... well, like New Orleans.

2. The world's record (for height) skyscraper is under construction in Dubai, which makes perfect sense when one reflects that the only skyscrapers not in danger of being attacked by Islamic militants are in Moslem countries. They can build as high as they want with impunity, while we're left quaking in our boots with anything above 5 stories tall (oh wait, that's the height of the Pentagon -- oh, forget it). If the premier symbol of America is, or was, the skyscraper, the 9-11 attacks have emasculated us once and for all regarding our self image.

3. A Swiss man with an elaborate tattoo has sold it -- the tattoo, that is -- to a collector, who now owns the right to put it on display (still attached to the live Swiss body), and also the right to have it "removed from the bearer's skin upon death". Yeah... technically, what they mean is removing the portion of the skin that the tattoo is inscribed on. Now, the gent who purchased this privilege is German. Does anyone see any sort of grotesque, um, "flashback" to an earlier era in this?

4. Still another story about the genetic "cause" of a human trait, this time marital infidelity, which is now supposed to be correlated with a "gene variant -- which is present in two of every five men". Now, as always when someone comes up with this sort of claim, I say, accepting it on its own terms, are they saying that this "infidelity gene" is a stable part of human genetic makeup, and that it persists from one generation to the next? And if it does, then it apparently has no differential effect on "survival", i.e. not of the individual but of his genetic line. So a guy who tends toward "marital discord and divorce" and is "distant and disagreeable", and who is more likely to just live with a woman rather than marry her -- this guy is no less likely to pass his genetic material on than anyone else. That is, he is just as likely to father children who themselves grow to maturity and proceed to perpetuate the genetic line. Now, there's no doubt that guys like this are high achievers when it comes to reproductive activity. But it also implies that women, as stressed out as they might be by these guys, are nonetheless still willing to bear their children. Either that, or they commonly find out about the guy too late, once they're already pregnant or have borne said children. And this, in turn, says something very curious about human society in general, as well as about certain segments of our own in particular, i.e. the segments in which unmarried mothers are the norm rather than the exception. The implications of all this "may" be explored -- right here on our stage -- at a later time.

5. And speaking of maladaptive subcultures, a recent column by Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune discusses the no-longer-true (if it ever was) "gender gap" when it comes to science and math education (and see my previous post on this subject: http://zarathustrasoldman.blogspot.com/2008/07/summers-of-their-discontent.html). But Page's concern is with life at the bottom, academically, among boys. He says, "When their grades slip and their adolescent concepts of manhood are crushed, they retreat to video games or even less productive escapes, rather than ask for help." Well, if he's talking about the subculture I think he's talking about, there is no chance that poor grades are a cause of any "crushing" of manhood concepts. In fact, it's the other way around, more often than not -- the culturally-based adolescent concept of manhood is the very thing that _causes_ indifference to schooling, poor performance, and bad grades. When the cultural "meme" is that being a good student is the equivalent of "acting white", and is thus a sign of disloyalty to the race, and when good grades are taken as evidence of having sold out to "the man", we can say with confidence that academic failure in this environment is one of the signs of belonging -- a perverse sign of achievement, if you will. And this will persist no matter how much more money is thrown at the public schools. But are the liberals ever going to point this out and try and facilitate change? Of course not. For them, ignorance (and dependence, i.e. of the electorate) truly is bliss.